The Systematic Character of the National Socialist
Policy for the Extermination of the Jews: Electronic Edition,
by Heinz Peter
Longerich

F. Extension of the Deportations

1.After the Wannsee Conference, the RSHA continued the planning of the deportation of the Jews in the Greater German Reich and expanded it to a first European deportation programme which encompassed a total of six states in the first instance.

2.In a express letter to the head and subsidiary offices of the Gestapo of 31 January, Eichmann made clear that "the recent evacuations of Jews from individual areas to the East" provided "the beginning of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the the Ostmark and in the Protektorat Bohemia and Moravia "289

3.In a discussion between Eichmann and representatives of the head offices of the Gestapo of 6 May, it becomes clear that a further Reich -wide deportation programme had been set up within the RSHA: what Heydrich had already announced in November 1941 as "the third wave"290. Eichmann explained that in the course of this next programme, 55.000 Jews would be deported from the territory of the Reich inclusive of the Ostmark and the Protektorat. He also announced that most of the remaining Jews of the Reich would most likely be forcibly removed to Theresienstadt in the course of the Summer or Fall. Theresienstadt was being cleared at that time.

4.Within the framework of this third wave of deportations, Jewish people from different parts of the territory of the Reich - from Vienna as well as Theresienstadt - would be forcibly removed between March and June 1942. These would be brought to the District of Lublin - especially to Izbica, Piaska, Zamocs and Trawniki. The inhabitants of these ghettos had been deported to the extermination camp Belzec shortly before. As a rule, the deportation-trains from the Reich stopped in Lublin, where those men "fit for work" were separated out in order to be put to work in the forced labour camp at Majdanek.291

5.There is conclusive proof of 43 transports, which as a rule carried 1000 people each. There are however indications of further transports, amounting to a probable 60 trains in all.292

6.The pattern of the deportation of Central European Jews and the extermination of the Eastern European Jews followed the same procedure as the first two waves of deportations in Fall 1941 and the following Winter. The living conditions in the ghettos in the District of Lublin led to a miserable death for the great majority of the deportees within few months of their arrival. Those who survived the conditions of the ghetto were generally deported to extermination camps in the Generalgouvernement. In March 1942, the deportations were also extended to two countries outside of the German Reich.

7.According to an agreement with Slovakia, young Jews who were "fit for work" were deported to Majdanek in the district of Lublin and to Auschwitz. Directly after this programme was introduced, following a request of the Germans, the Slovakian government declared their willingness to deport all Slovakian Jews (close to 90.000 people). The deportation of families was started 11 April. By June, 11 trains had arrived in Auschwitz and a further 28 had gone to ghettos in the disrict of Lublin, or the camp at Majdanek.293

8.In France, the military administration had decided in December 1941 to send the first transport with hostages of 1000 Jewish men to the East. This transport had been organised since January 1941, but had not been sent off due to lack of a means of transportation.

9.After Eichmann had agreed to the deportation of these 1000 people on 1 March294, a discussion within the RSHA of 4 March resulted in a decision to propose the deportation of a further "appr. 5000 Jews to the East" to the French government. This was recorded by Dannecker, the expert for Jewish questions of the Gestapo in Paris.295 Dannecker also told the Embassy staff-member in charge of Jewish affairs Zeitschel, that Heydrich had agreed that, after the deportation of the first 1000 people, "a further 5000 Jews would be transported in the course of 1942" and that he had "agreed that further even larger transports could be carried out."296 While the first transport - which left on 27 March and arrived in Auschwitz 30 March297 - was still declared a repressive measure against the French resistance, the coming "hostage-transports"were to be part of the course of a concrete programme of deportations.

10.The deportation of 5000 people to Auschwitz, which Heydrich had announced at the beginning of March, was carried out between 5 June and 17 July. These five transports - as the transports of families from Slovakia which started in April - were at this point already part of the first European-wide deportation programme of the RSHA. An important piece of evidence as to the existence of this programme is found in a note from the office of the Slovakian prime minister Tuka, dated 10 April, concerning a visit by Heydrich.298 On this occasion, Heydrich explained to Tuka that the planned deportation of Slovakian Jews was only "a part of the programme".299 At the time, there was an "resettlement"of altogether "1/2 million"Jews "out of Europe to the East". Aside from Slovakia, the Reich, the Protektorat, the Netherlands, Belgium and France were also affected.

11.On 11 June 1942, a discussion took place in the Department for Jewish affairs of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. The German experts on Jewish affairs stationed in Paris, The Hague and Brussels gathered to discuss the occupied Western European part of the general European deportation programme. Dannecker, the expert for Jewish affairs of the Gestapo in Paris, made a note to himself stating that Himmler had given the order to "provide larger quantities of Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp, to increase the work-force. This is on the primary condition that the Jews (of both sexes) be between 16 and 40 years old. 10% who are not fit for work can be sent with them. "300

12.According to Danneckers note, 15.000 Jews were to be deported from the Netherlands, 10.000 from Belgium and 100.000 from France, starting 13 July.301